MAYHEM
Issue Two – November 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
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Tanya Botha
Withering Bones
You thought you’d found a good girl. You sent a prayer to no one, hoping desperately it would
be true. Her name was Rosie and she lived on the south side of town in a house of stone bricks
and slanted windowpanes. Her skin was unblemished and she liked to braid her hair. When you
first saw her, she wore a simple dress made of silk and calico, red flowers adorning her breasts.
Your eyes were drawn to her skin. Its translucence betrayed the existence of stark blue veins. So
often you long for veins to be red. You’ve always loved red.
You don’t like to think much of your childhood, but you like to think about your mother. As a
boy, you spent most of your time with few effects that contained any semblance of appeal. You
kept only three books, collected over the years of moving into desolate apartment blocks.
Damaged toys were plentiful, but there was something about books that held your attention. It
seemed that neither blemish, nor brokenness could undermine the purpose of books. If the words
existed, the book was useful. If you read the words out loud, you could block out the sounds of
taunting moans coming from your mother’s room. Sometimes at night when she was alone, she
would let you brush her long red hair. You loved the silkiness of it between your fingers, the way
it seemed to slip without any effort. She would caress your thigh ever so slightly. You would
ignore the bite marks on her collarbone and she would ignore you stiffening in your shorts. The
only thing you have left of your mother is her hair.
Rosie lived with her stepfather in her stone house. She prepared meals in the kitchen and she
read books in her room at night. She wore red lipstick during the day and kept her nails short.
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© Copyright remains with the individual author
MAYHEM
Issue Two – November 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
Sometimes after she cried, her irises would lighten to a colour so pale, it was as if they were
windows and she was beckoning you to climb in. Once inside, you felt hollow. Your hand
instinctively reached for her abdomen; you wanted to offer comfort.
“Don’t,” she said. Your hand faltered.
“I don’t need you.”
She needed you. It was your first time inside of her. You couldn’t help but notice the brevity
with which she addressed you. You could feel her laboured breathing when she inhaled. Her
intestines were hurting. Your hand brushed her protruding pelvic bone as your fingers trailed
languidly down her body. Her eyes made you want to scream. She was as beautiful as she was
broken. You don’t collect broken toys.
There was a cat named Thomas in the apartment you lived when you were fourteen. You
despised Thomas; his fur stood in filthy tufts and he hissed at the dark. He sat on the weathered
couch and stared lazily as you read your books. One day you found a rat in the kitchen and
Thomas barely turned his head.
“Thomas! Get the rat. It’s eating our fucking food!”
Thomas didn’t move. Thomas had abandoned you and the predicament remained in your hands.
For that, you could not forgive him. He skulked around the apartment with an air of defiance,
filled with the knowledge of his betrayal without a hint of remorse. It wasn’t until a year later,
when Thomas walked in on you pleasuring yourself in your mother’s room, that you had enough.
Wanting to have as little contact with him as you could manage, you strung a rope around his
grimy neck. You held him under a cold shower until you were satisfied that he was clean enough
and you hung him out of the bathroom window. His eyes told the story of your obvious heart.
You never did like Thomas.
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© Copyright remains with the individual author
MAYHEM
Issue Two – November 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
Rosie liked flowers. In the winter she sat outside in her garden, wrapped up in a coat and a scarf,
watching as the rain fell on the red calendulas she planted in the spring. They were in full bloom
and sometimes you wondered if she planted them because they were the colour of her hair. The
rain didn’t stain her face. It only seemed to emphasise the red of her lips. You knew she wasn’t
like other girls. You’ve seen the way skin hangs loosely in the crevices of eyes smeared with
black. You’ve seen the way blood vessels burst underneath the skin like stars when sucked too
hard. Her beauty was one you couldn’t comprehend. It made you want to consume. Once, you
thought she was crying while she was outside with the flowers. You wondered what she might be
crying about. You considered offering comfort, but then you remembered that her eyes were
windows and instead, you climbed inside her once more.
You never had many friends growing up. You preferred your own company and made use of
every opportunity you had for socialising to watch the interactions of others instead. As a child,
you witnessed the paradoxical theme of pretending another child was your infant and treating
them as a mother would treat her own offspring. It seemed to you nonsensical, a child wanting
their own child when they could hardly prepare meals for their own consumption or use the toilet
by themselves. You were never filled with a similar craving and for that you were grateful. At a
later stage, you witnessed the lascivious manner in which girls would open their legs underneath
the desk in hopes that the young English teacher might catch a glimpse. Their mouths would part
in the same predictable manner, tongue dancing behind the teeth, chest bucking forward and
heaving slightly. It wasn’t long after that you started noticing the teeth marks on their necks and
the burst blood vessels covering collarbones. It was something you expected with the same
certainty that you expected yourself to continue breathing, yet you could not avoid the deafening
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© Copyright remains with the individual author
MAYHEM
Issue Two – November 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
blow of disappointment upon its sight. You were repulsed. Your shoulders dropped as if you had
been holding your breath and stomach acid made its way up your throat. They were filthy, just
like Thomas.
The first time you met Rosie, you gave her three red lilies. Her cheeks blushed scarlet and she
said you were kind. You felt kind. You walked her home. You had never walked anyone home.
She said she had to feed her cat.
“Do you have any pets?”
“Yes.” you replied slowly.
“Really? What’s its name?”
“His name is Thomas.”
You never noticed a cat around the stone house and you harboured hope that he would come into
the garden sometime. You asked to come inside.
“I, um, I think I have homework to do, sorry,” she hesitated. She bit her lip. You stifled a
scream. You wondered if you should have asked. Maybe you should have offered to brush her
hair.
At the age of seventeen, your mother had let you stay in her bed for almost three years. Of
course, you were relegated to the same cold sprung mattress that no longer held the length of you
in its confines on the nights when she had guests. You stayed up listening to her familiar sighs.
The following night she would let you brush her hair and fresh marks would cover her breasts.
Your fingers traced them and your hands squeezed hard.
“Brush mama’s hair, darlin’ you know how much mama loves it.”
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© Copyright remains with the individual author
MAYHEM
Issue Two – November 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
Her hand always caressed you so softly. You knew you were needed. The task at hand was just
yours and this you could do well. Your strokes continued and so did hers.
After some time, Rosie had begun to invade your every thought. You dreamt that she lay on a
bed of roses with nothing but your hands in her hair. Her lips were red and her alabaster skin
was clean and untouched. Her nipples stood like buds from a young flower. She opened her
mouth. She begged you to touch her. From the very first meeting, you promised yourself you
wouldn’t allow harm to befall her. You followed her home again. You thought about the lilies
you gave her, the flowers of promise. You thought about the time she said she didn’t want you to
talk to her anymore. She didn’t mean it. She said she would tell her stepfather that you weren’t
kind. She didn’t.
On your nineteenth birthday, you came home to find your mother had packed her things. She
didn’t own much. A silver shawl, a hairbrush, a knitting needle and a frayed toothbrush. She lay
sleeping on her bed, wrapped in a thin stained sheet. You could see the curve of her breasts,
rising and falling softly beneath the fabric. You climbed onto the bed and lay beside her. You
nestled your nose into her soft tresses and inhaled deeply. She smelt like cinnamon and
cigarettes. You pressed your body into her back and felt the bones of her spine pressing hard
against you. Your hands caressed her thigh, your need growing. You thought about the first time
you saw her exposed breasts. She had moaned and you walked down the hall to her room. You
saw her resting on her hands and knees, red hair wild around her head. Her mouth was open,
tongue dancing behind her teeth, her heavy breasts bucking forward. An angry, red-faced man
was behind her, his hands pressed on her lower back, pushing backwards and forwards in violent
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright remains with the individual author
MAYHEM
Issue Two – November 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
thrusts. Sweat rolled down the mat of hair covering his chest. Your mother’s eyes rolled back in
her head and she called your name.
You knew Rosie wasn’t like everyone else. You could see it in the way she carried flowers in her
hair and the way she kept her skin clean. You wondered if she knew that red followed her
wherever she went. Red in her hair, red on her mouth, red on her dresses, red on her skin. You
smiled to yourself. You would be the one to tell her. She wouldn’t walk away from you this time.
She had to know about the red. Of course she would want to know about the red.
“Red follows you,” you said.
“What?”
“There’s red all over you. It’s in your hair.”
“Yeah, I, um, have red hair.”
“There’s more. It’s seeping out. It’s running down the back of your dress.”
“What? I don’t know what you mean.”
“There’s some coming out of your nose too.”
“Um, thanks for that. My stepdad is waiting for me, so…” She trailed off.
“It’s…I like it.”
She made a move to leave. Why was she leaving? Why didn’t she see the red? It ran down her
legs. You forgot to tell her that it was beautiful. She was perfect. Red Rosie.
The lily crumples a little in your hand when you put it between her fingers. You wonder what it
is about the cold that makes her skin so pale. Her lips aren’t red anymore. Her fingers used to be
warm. You don’t know if you like the way she looks now. You enjoy the red. But you wish her
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright remains with the individual author
MAYHEM
Issue Two – November 2014
ISSN 2382-0322
______________________________________________________________________________
lips were red too. You wish her eyes weren’t open, telling the story of your obvious heart. You
wish she wasn’t so cold. You wish she would move. You thought you’d found a good girl.
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© Copyright remains with the individual author